


Judge

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2019 [15]
Category: Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: Brainwashing, Coda, Dark, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Strong Language, Tragedy, between games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-27 07:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19786222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: “I saw what he did to the Deputy.”





	Judge

Tracey didn’t know why she went back.  
  
Everything that was ever beautiful or familiar about Hope County had been destroyed; and maybe she just wanted to make herself feel better about it by seeing how something truly _ugly_ about Hope County had been destroyed too.  
  
And Eden’s Gate had truly been ugly.  
  
So Tracey had marched across the recovering landscape of the Henbane, raggedly insistent on seeing the ruined remains of the Eden’s Gate compound. And she hadn’t been disappointed: The Eden’s Gate compound had been razed by the apocalypse, sending most of the ruined buildings underwater and leaving the rest shells of their former selves.  
  
By her estimation, Tracey had figured that Eden’s Gate had- proportionally speaking, anyway- ended up _way_ more destroyed than Fall’s End.  
  
Mary May would take some pleasure in that, and Tracey would delight in telling her of it later.  
  
And then Tracey had seen movement near the church.  
  
She’d just managed to duck into cover before a group of people emerged from the wreckage of the compound’s church. They were all members of Eden’s Gate- Tracey recognized two of them almost immediately as people she’d known, but the rest were easily identified by their attire. Most all of them had some form of the Eden’s Gate cross on them, either on their clothes or tattooed directly on their bodies. And standing in the middle of them, making them part like the Red Sea…  
  
_Fuck, fuck, fuck!_  
  
Joseph was alive.  
  
Because of _course_ he was alive. Twinkies, cockroaches, and Joseph Seed were the three absolutes to survive a nuclear apocalypse: She didn’t know about Twinkies, but Joseph and roaches had plenty of similarities between them.  
  
_What hole did you crawl out of, you son of a-_  
  
The insult died as Tracey’s brain slammed to a screeching halt.  
  
Something inside her shriveled up and died. Later, she’d assume it was the last of her hope.  
  
Deputy Rook was standing at Joseph’s side, considerably thinner than she’d been when Tracey had last seen her (not, in and of itself, a bad sign- there were a lot of people who’d gone on what some of them glibly referred to as ‘The Collapse Diet’). It was the fact that she was standing so close to Joseph that set warning-bells off in Tracey’s head, and even from where she was hiding, she could see something… _Funny_ about Rook’s face, about her expression and her posture; they were both limp, entirely without purpose or energy. When Joseph moved, she moved, like he was the lighthouse guiding her through the fog, the only thing keeping her moving.  
  
Tracey knew that look.  
  
She’d been _surrounded_ by people who’d had looks like that when she’d been a part of the cult, and even then, they’d never been so quietly, dully submissive like this.  
  
Tracey turned away, a hand over her mouth.  
  
Realizing that Joseph had survived the Collapse he’d supposedly predicted was infuriating. But seeing what had become of Rook, the greatest of his enemies in the county and the one who’d come the closest to taking him down, was just downright painful- as painful as seeing what had become of the Montana wilderness after the bombs, as painful as seeing Mary May work herself to sickness trying to bring Fall’s End back to its former glory.  
  
_What do I do?_ Should she tell anyone? Jerome, Mary May, the Ryes- should she tell them what had become of Rook? Maybe they’d have a way to get her back. They at least had to know that Joseph-fuckin’-Seed was still alive, had to know just in case he decided to come and give them more-  
  
“ _Huh_.”  
  
Tracey nearly jumped out of her skin.  
  
Rook was standing before her, eyes glassy, gaze unfocused. It was telling that she wasn’t reacting more strongly to Tracey’s presence: She must have recognized her, or maybe she hadn’t had her brain _completely_ been taken over by Joseph’s doctrine. “ _Hah_ ,” She rasped again, cocking her head and looking at Tracey without any hint of true recognition in her eyes. Why was she making those sounds?  
  
“Rook…” Tracey whispered. What should she say? What _could_ she say?  
  
“ _Huh_.” Rook cleared her throat, and for a moment, frustration made her brow crinkle and made her look a little livelier.  
  
“Can you talk?”  
  
Rook shook her head. “ _Nuh_.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Rook raised her head, pointedly lifting a hand to massage her throat. Well, that didn’t tell her much, but Tracey supposed that a lot of weird shit could happen to your body when there was no access to modern medicine.  
  
“Come back with me,” Tracey said, carefully and calmly, afraid that she would spook Rook by coming on too strong. “I can take you to Fall’s End, maybe Mary May can hook you up with a-”  
  
But Rook shook her head, inching backwards, a pained look on her face. “ _Nuh, nuh, nuh,_ ” She croaked.  
  
Tracey’s shoulders slumped.  
  
There was no point in trying to convince her further. Tracey had seen that before, people like Virgil had insisted on going to the cult and dragging their kids out, forcing them to see reason- and those same people, Virgil included, had come back with slumped shoulders and collapsed into their chairs, their beds, their spouses’ arms, and morosely proclaimed that their children had not seen reason: They were too absorbed into Joseph’s way of thinking to come out.  
  
Tracey could have told them that before, but they wouldn’t have listened.  
  
They had to see it for themselves to understand.  
  
_You can’t get out until you **want** to get out._  
  
And right now, Rook didn’t want to get out.  
  
“Okay,” Tracey whispered. “Okay.” It took everything in her to turn back to the path. How was she going to tell Nick about this? How was she going to tell _anyone_ who’d known Rook before the bombs about this? How could she tell them that Rook had survived, only to become unrecognizable to them?  
  
Rook didn’t move as Tracey started to walk away; and after a moment Tracey swallowed thickly, and then turned back.  
  
“Of all the people in Hope County who _didn’t_ deserve what they got,” She said, voice warbling a little, “ _You_ deserved this the least.”  
  
Rook cocked her head, but said- or, _attempted_ to say- nothing.  
  
Once Tracey was a little ways down the path, she broke into a run.  
  
_I have to get out of this county,_ she thought, _there’s nothing good left here. It’s all gone._  
  
Most of the people were gone, Rook was brainwashed, and Joseph Seed and Eden’s Gate was still very much alive.  
  
There was nothing left worth staying for.  
  
-End


End file.
